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Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Oh my, how we love to abuse ourselves and do shit the hard way and not listen to the reasonable voices around us.

Oh my, how we also hate Bermudagrass sooooOOOOOOOOOOOooooOOoOOOOoooooooooo much.

Oh my god, fuck you.

Seriously, now.

And that is how I ended up spending last Saturday shoveling and shoveling and shoveling (and admiring worms and dark crumbly soil and fantasizing about summer tomatoes) and shoveling until HOLY I thought I might pass away.

This photo in no way represents HOW MUCH soil that is. IT'S SO MUCH.

But that's the end of the story, the beginning of the story started with Bubba saying, "You know, baby, we really should rip everything out of the back part of the yard so that we can get rid of the Bermudagrass back there, now that we've gotten rid of it up here."

Don't worry, beautiful soil, I'll save you!

And then I pretended not to hear him because LO that's a lot of work. And also it would mean relocating a lot of cubic yards of finely tuned and productive garden soil without misplacing a single crumb. And also shoveling like I've never shoveled before. And looking at/pulling/swearing at Bermudagrass like I've never known before so that it started to invade even my waking dreams.

But he wouldn't let it go even though I kept conveniently hearing other things while he was talking until finally he took me by the shoulders and presented our Pay Attention To Me, This Is Important phrase: "Come on, peckerhead. We need to do this."

I know, we're very mature. No, I don't know how we landed on this as our prime method of communicating when the other one needs to make something a priority and quit fucking around, but there you go.

It's gotten us through taxes, computer OS migrations, house projects and now terrible and horrific yard work.

So, if I'm ever trying to get your attention about something and you hear me say, "Come on, peckerhead." you better fucking well listen because I mean business.

We're very profesh.

So yes, when Bubba delivered The Ultimate Line, I did listen and then I considered his proposal very seriously and then I began creating a plan.

It had to be done before the bees arrived because you can't be loudly and sweatily mucking about around a new and active hive with shovels and flying dirt and rage. It's bad bee business.

So that meant it had to be done before 4/7 because that's when the bees come.

So that meant we also had to get the grapes in and trellised before then because once this project is done and the bees are in, I'm only going to want to work with the vegetables and the grapes came into the nursery way early and needed to be planted.

So so so...and and and...it basically meant it all had to be done this month. When we've had an incredibly epic snowy winter and all Bubba wants to do is ski. And rightfully so because the man Lives. To. Ski.

And I have a race coming up for which I need to train. And I'm going to see my boys play at Spring Training and will be out of town. And Bubba has work bullcrappery that takes him out of town.

Anyway, what happened was what I described above - Saturday became Finny Shovels Her Back and Hamstrings To Death Day while Bubba Skis.

That there are four empty vegetable beds and a bunch of soil in a sauna.

This will then turn into Bubba Pulls Bermudagrass Until His Gloves Wear Holes In Them while Finny Runs.

And then, I imagine there will be a lot of double duty where we're both out there rolling out new bulletproof landscape fabric and then bark mulch and staring down anything that looks remotely like a speck of Bermudagrass until the bees arrive and the situation's out of our hands.

Then I plant the vegetable garden and we all go back to our regularly scheduled lives of FREAKING OUT ABOUT THE #1 TOMATO plus a fun and exciting contest I'm going to announce when the prizes show up at my house (oooooh! suspense! You don't get that a lot around here.).

But until we get the Bermudagrass out, we can't do any of those fun things. So, go forth we must, into the back breakingest yard work I'm likely to know in my lifetime because we can't just go out back with a bottle of Round-Up and nuke that crap. OH NO. We're doing this by the organic method, folks, and that means hard labor that results in healthier soil rather than the chemical method which results in dead soil and OH WHAT THE HELL a triumphant return of Bermudagrass in under 6 month's time.

Don't believe me? I dare not tell a lie about the indestructible nature of Bermudagrass. That stuff is the devil's own landscape material, I tell you what.

7 comments:

oh peckerhead. Fun fact- when I was in 6th grade I once saw my dad marching up the front walk of school. A few minutes later I see him talking.. very sternly.. to my brother, who he hauled out of class. Later on I found out that Travis called a girl a peckerhead in front of the class and my dad made him apologize to her AND the class.. while standing in front of the class. Travis, to this day, insists peckerhead was a spelling word and he was using it in a sentence for practice. The guy is going to be 27 this year and STILL believs that.

I hate that stupid Bermuda grass. It is most definitely the devil. I've dug it out of the front yard and took the clumps and threw them in the field across the street. One section at a time. I still have the stuff popping up here and there but I have fields all around me so I'm sure I'll never get rid of it entirely. The bark in the flower beds has definitely helped to keep it down though.

We don't have Bermuda grass here. We have every OTHER fucking thing, including burdocks and whatever that goddamn weed was that totally took over the garden last year and then seeded before I could get it out so God knows how I'm going to destroy it this year. But no Bermuda grass. So that's a positive, I guess.

You invoked the line, so you'd better bet I'm listening. All while I sit down and rest for you -- that's a WHOLE LOTTA work! We can't even think about getting out in our yard yet -- and really I don't want to think about it. Lotsa work this year -- methinks we need a Finny to helup us along. Oh, and I would invoke the line with hubby, but that term is so commonplace around here he just ignores me!

I'm glad I'm out here in the middle of the continent where you can't reach me after I type this. My Dad grows bermuda grass on purpose. Loves it to death. Covers every bare patch of our "lawn" with little seedlings that he sprouts in random containers all over the porch. Yes. I didn't know, until I read your blog, that everyone didn't worship the bermuda enough to have an altar on their porch. (Next to the deep freeze, office chair, and mini beer fridge that comprise my dad's office now that he's retired and a full-time Bermuda Farmer.) Don't hate me!

word confirmation: ashyrdro as in "Finny's not a shrydro--she tells us all kinds of embarrassing things, mostly including her ass."

So I just took a look at your March 2012 post about your lovely gift of dirt. It looks like the burmuda is still at bay. There is almost nothing more evil in the garden than burmuda grass (except perhaps rodents), I am SO grateful that I don't have THAT pest to deal with too.

Did you know that one cubic yard of soil weighs about a ton? I shoveled 5 or 6 tons of the stuff today... sh** I'm tired.

[2013 update: You can't comment as an anonymous person anymore. Too many douchebags were leaving bullshit SPAM comments and my inbox was getting flooded, but if you're here to comment in a real way like a real person, go to it.]

Look at you commenting, that's fun.

So, here's the thing with commenting, unless you have an email address associated with your own profile, your comment will still post, but I won't have an email address with which to reply to you personally.

Sucks, right?

Anyway, to remedy this, I usually come back to my posts and post replies in the comment field with you.

But, if you ever want to email me directly to talk about pumpkins or shoes or what it's like to spend a good part of your day Swiffering - shoot me an email to finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom.